Good morning. Given the uproar over the massive breach at Equifax Inc. and the Department of Homeland Security’s federal ban on software from Kaspersky Lab (more on that below), today’s cybersecurity risks seem quite bad enough, thank you. Yet just you wait. Researchers from around the world are working on a new form of computing that will be so powerful that it could break encryption upon which businesses currently rely. And this form of computing, quantum computing, isn’t science fiction, although it certainly sounds weird enough to qualify as such.

“The threat of a cyber attack by hackers or rogue nation states with access to quantum computers is becoming real enough that scientists and public officials are convening here this week in part to urge companies to develop a plan for defense,” CIO Journal’s Sara Castellanos reports from London. More than 150 cryptographers, business executives and public officials attended the first day of the three-day Quantum Safe Workshop, hosted by organizations including the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and United Kingdom’s Quantum Technology Hub for Quantum Communications.

As companies are advancing toward building the world’s first large-scale quantum computer sooner than previously thought, the threat to widely used encryption algorithms could materialize within 10 years, said Michele Mosca, co-founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. Brian LaMacchia, head of the security and cryptography team at Microsoft Research and a Microsoft Corp. distinguished engineer, said more customers are asking for briefings on quantum computing and cryptography systems. Quantum-safe or quantum-resistant algorithms could potentially thwart a quantum computing attack. “Every year the dial is turning, it’s heating up non-trivially,” Dr. Mosca said in an interview at the event.

Nascent quantum computing poses security threat. A scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computer would pose a major threat to widely used algorithms, scientists and public officials at a London conference on quantum computing said Wednesday. As companies advance toward building the world’s first large-scale quantum computer sooner than previously thought, the threat to widely used encryption algorithms could materialize within 10 years, reports CIO Journal’s Sara Castellanos. Quantum computers could sort through a vast number of possibilities — more than the number of atoms in the universe -- to solve problems, completing calculations as quickly as in a fraction of a second. The RSA algorithm at the heart of today’s encryption methods could be vulnerable within 10 years.

SECURITY AND PRIVACY

The Equifax data breach affected potentially 143 million Americans.

EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Equifax blames exploited web-server software for data breach.Equifax Inc. said criminals exploited a known vulnerability in Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638, a popular open-source framework for developing web applications in the Java, in the data breach that affected potentially 143 million Americans, the Journal's AnnaMaria Andriotis reports. The admission won't help the credit-reporting firm's case. The vulnerability had been known in circles since March.

Full extent unknown. The credit reporting firm on Wednesday also shared information that suggests it still doesn’t know the full extent of the breach. The company said it “has been intensely investigating the scope of the intrusion” with help from a cybersecurity firm to determine what information was accessed and who has been affected.

Feds call for purge of Kaspersky products. The Trump administration Wednesday ordered U.S. government agencies to remove security products made by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab from their IT systems, Reuters reports. One of the world's leading antivirus providers, the company has been the subject of recent investigations into employee ties to various Russian agencies. Company co-founder Eugene Kaspersky attended the KGB’s cryptography institute and worked for the Soviet military. The company has denied any unethical ties or affiliations to any government, including Russia’s, the WSJ's Paul Sonne reports. Best Buy Co. last week announced it would pull Kaspersky antvirus products from its shelves.

EUROPE

The European Union’s executive body pledged to make a proposal for new rules to tax internet giants, such as Facebook, whose main office in Ireland is pictured here in this file photo.

NIALL CARSON/ZUMA PRESS

Europe steps up bid to boost taxes on internet giants. The move by the European Commission comes amid a joint drive for the tax led by France and including Germany, Spain and Italy, the Journal's Natalia Drozdiak and Sam Schechner report. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker flagged the upcoming proposal as part of a broader statement outlining the priorities of the bloc’s executive body for the next two years.

Apple, Dell, others move to buy Toshiba’s chip business. Toshiba Corp. signed a nonbinding agreement Wednesday with a group led by private-equity firm Bain Capital that includes Apple Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., Seagate Technology PLC, and others for its memory-chip business. The agreement, which values the business at about $19 billion, is the latest twist in a global auction that has pitted three major bidders against each other and exposed a rift between Toshiba and a key partner, Western Digital Corp., which is also vying for the business, write the Journal’s Dana Mattioli and Dana Cimilluca. Toshiba must sell the business to counter losses from its U.S. nuclear unit. The chips in question are NAND flash memory chips used for data storage in smartphones, computers and other electronics.

Samsung bets on automotive innovation. Samsung Electronics Co. has created a $300 million fund targeting new investments for automotive software and technology, says the Journal's Timothy W. Martin. It's the latest sign of the world’s largest smartphone maker’s desire to diversify beyond traditional electronics.

And on his farm he had a... image recognition system. BASF, the German chemical conglomerate, is working on automated image-recognition capabilities to analyze farmers’ photographs of suspicious spots on crop leaves and deliver early warnings for diseases such as wheat leaf rust. The company says machine learning could revamp the way the company studies chemical molecules’ effects on fungus, weeds and other pests.

IBM CEO sees AI as friend not foe. Artificial intelligence will enhance jobs, not eliminate them Ginni Rometty, chief executive of International Business Machines Corp., said at a Bloomberg conference in New York. “There’s so much fear-mongering around what AI is,” Ms. Rometty said, reports Bloomberg’s Jing Cao. “When it comes to complete job replacement, it will be a very small percentage; when it comes to changing a job and what you do, it’ll be 100 percent.” She foresees a $2 trillion market for tools that help humans make decisions.

The Morning Download is edited by Tom Loftus and cues up the most important news in business technology every weekday morning. Kim S. Nash contributed to today's newsletter. Send us your tips, compliments and complaints. You can get The Morning Download emailed to you each weekday morning by clicking http://wsj.com/TheMorningDownload.